I finished this today! Phew, what a ride. In regards to the fair, I had such a hard time believing something like that actually existed! The descriptions of the buildings, how enormous it was … my brain just can’t comprehend it. The rivalries between cities and countries was interesting. The history of the Ferris wheel was particularly neat. All the government bureaucracy was very familiar as a government worker. It was sad that a lot of the men who pioneered the major aspects of the fair died soon after or in misery and loneliness. Opening and closing the story with the titanic vignette really helped situate the fair in the historical timeline for me.
About Holmes, I found his parts of the story didn’t add much to the larger book. There was a 75/25 feel to it with the majority of the book covering the fair and then the random bit about the Irish guy shooting the mayor. I think I would have preferred the book to focus only on the fair and go into more detail in certain areas, like more about what happened to the fair after it closed. Like is it still there?? I have no idea if it was demolished or what!
The two storylines are so large on their own that combining the two diminished them and lead to a this-is-a-brief-overview feeling instead of a detailed account.
I think I’m so used to David Grann going overboard with details and sources and quotes and documents and condensing a story down to the most important core of it.
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